Raoul Moat

End of the sick spree

Moat was rushed to hospital. But he was pronounced dead on arrival.On 10 July, at 3:12am, Northumbria Police confirm that Moat is dead.The manhunt had cost taxpayers £1.5million.But in keeping with this strange, sad story, some came to praise the memory of Moat.The child-beating, girlfriend-assaulting, murderer was actually held up as an icon by some. One mother, Teresa Bystrom, who had never known him in life, brought up her three teenage sons from the South of England to pay their respects at Moat’s funeral:Teresa: “I absolutely love the man. I think he’s great.Interviewer: “You don’t worry about the message that sends to your sons given the crimes that this man committed?”Teresa: “No, not at all. Not at all.Interviewer: “You think your sons should use Raoul as a role model?”Teresa: “Yeah, actually, I do.”

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In August that year, the missing father that Moat had blamed for his own failings went public. Peter Blake publicly bore the sins of his son saying:“I’m to blame for everything that happened...I know if I was there for him growing up, he would have turned out very differently. If this story should teach us anything, it’s that boys need fathers.”Unable to help his son in life, he did attend his funeral and carried his son’s coffin.Also that month was the funeral of Moat’s first victim, Christopher Brown. His family asked Samantha Stobbart to stay away.At the beginning of 2011, Moat’s accomplices stood trial at Newcastle Crown Court.Karl Ness and Qhuram Awan were accused of being ‘part and parcel’ of Moat’s conspiracy to kill policeman. They had aided Moat in securing a weapon in searching for and locating Samantha and in helping him getaway.The trial, like the manhunt, had many bizarre elements: The fact that two people preparing to help a murder had been seen laughing and joking in Tesco’s buying supplies; How Moat had supposedly shouted ‘Wonga’ when he robbed the chip shop; And how they’d nearly killed another policeman. But because Moat hadn’t finished his McDonald’s McFlurry, they let the policeman live.On 15 March 2011, despite not actually pulling the trigger, Ness was found guilty of murdering Christopher Brown and the attempted murder of Samantha Stobbart. He and Qhuram Awan were found guilty of several other charges including the attempted murder of David Rathband. Awan is recommended to serve a minimum of 20 years. Ness’s minimum is 40 years.An inquest in September 2011 found that Raoul was not mentally ill.Social media sites celebrating Moat continued to grow. They celebrated Moat as a ‘Robin Hood’ character who stood up to the police. The fact that he’d killed an innocent man who wasn’t police and had escalated his domestic violence into an armed attack on the mother of his child was not highlighted.A year after the murders, floral tributes to Moat again appeared. Local residents were disgusted.The permanently scarred Samantha wished that more would remember Christopher.David Rathband, the PC blinded by Moat’s shotgun set up the Blue Lamp Foundation, a charity to raise money to help Emergence Service Personnel injured in the line of duty. He was fitted with prosthetic eyes and was awarded ‘The Pride of Britain’ award.His rate of recovery and his resilience amazed everyone.“David had this public persona and he was happy to be in the lime light to keep the case in the memory to raise money for his charity. But behind closed doors, you know, his life was stress and trauma and people didn’t see that."Tony Horne, co-author of Rathband book, ‘Tango 190’On the evening of Wednesday 29 February 2012, David Rathband was found hanged at his home. He’d committed suicide.“I wasn’t surprised - I was heartbroken, but I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t blame David; I couldn’t be cross with him because I understood.”Debbie Essery, Rathband’s younger sisterIt was later revealed that the charity he set up might fail to raise the one million Rathband hoped. The economic downturn was blamed.What Northumbria Police did with the information from Durham prison that Moat had the potential to harm his ex-partner is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.It has already endorsed the police actions on the day Moat died. Without their decisive cordoning and containing of the situation, Moat may have killed many, many more.There will be a full inquest into the death of Christopher Brown.For Christopher Brown’s mother, however, there is no end:“I still expecting my son to ring me and tell me he’s OK. Even now, so life for me is, just existing.”